voilas je vous étale se que pense les analiste de nhl.con du canadien pour faire différent des vendu a rds^^(jlai aime quand meme)
Entering this week, nine of the NHL´s Top 10 leading scorers were from the Eastern Conference.
The Ottawa Senators led the way with three of the top point-getters, Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza, while the Flyers had two with Peter Forsberg and Simon Gagne.
The Rangers´ Jaromir Jagr was up there as well, and so too was Carolina´s Eric Staal.
That would account for four of the five teams battling for division leads in the East.
So, what about those Montreal Canadiens? To find a member of Les Habitants among the leading scorers, you had to thumb down to No. 17, where Saku Koivu was hanging on with 25 points. Beyond that, you´d have to drop to 55th to find the next Canadien, Alex Kovalev. And by the time he returns from knee surgery he´ll be way out of the scoring race.
Chuck Gormley covers the Philadelphia Flyers for the South Jersey Courier-Post. His Eastern Conference notebook appears each Tuesday during the season on NHL.com.
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Related Links:
Western Conference notebook
East Notes, Nov. 15, 2005
East Notes, Nov. 8, 2005
East Notes, Nov. 1, 2005
East Notes, Oct. 25, 2005
East Notes, Oct. 18, 2005
Same goes for goaltending leaders.
Sure, you´ll find Ottawa´s Dominik Hasek at the top of the heap of the goals-against average leaders. But to find Jose Theodore, you had to scroll all the way down to the 21st spot, where he was a shade under three goals a game.
Top-scoring defensemen? Toronto´s Bryan McCabe, Philly´s Joni Pitkanen and Ottawa´s Wade Redden were up there. But to find a member of the Canadiens´ blue-line corps, you had to scroll down to No. 44, where Andrei Markov had a whopping two goals and eight assists for 10 points.
All of which begs this question: How the heck are the Montreal Canadiens winning so many games this season? And why are they threatening the Senators, Rangers, Hurricanes and Flyers for the conference lead?
Before last weekend, when they dropped back-to-back contests to the Capitals and Devils, the answer was easy. The Habs had learned how to win air-tight games. Eleven of their 13 wins had been by one-goal.
More importantly, eight different players had scored game-winning goals, led by Michael Ryder´s three.
Through their first 21 games, no one on the Canadiens had more than nine goals and only six players had six or more goals.
The true test for the Canadiens will be winning games without the explosive Kovalev, who had seven goals and 12 assists in 18 games before being sidelined by knee surgery. With his return expected sometime in mid to late December, the Habs will need to lean a little heavier on forwards Koivu, Mike Ribeiro, Steve Begin and Richard Zednick.
"We can´t forget about the strong start that we´ve had to this season," third-year Canadiens coach Claude Julien said after his team´s lost weekend.
"Over an 82-game schedule there are going to be highs and lows. Now it´s just up to us to make some adjustments and pick ourselves back up. We´ve managed to come back in a lot of games so far this year, but even in all those close games we were winning, we continued to stress that we could not come from behind every night. You can´t play catch-up hockey as often as we have and expect to be successful long term."
Koivu, who has been the Habs´ most consistent forward this season, agreed.
"We´ve had this coming for a while," he said. "We´ve talked all season about being more consistent and doing the little things. Even in those games when we still won after being down two and three goals, sooner or later that was going to come back and hunt us down."
Even without Kovalev, there are lots of reasons to believe the Canadiens will stay in the hunt for a playoff spot after missing the playoffs in four of the past six seasons.
With Markov, Craig Rivet and 5-foot-8 dynamo Francis Bouillon, their unheralded defense is mobile enough to thrive in the new NHL, where puck-moving defensemen are a must. Stay-at-homer Sheldon Souray has struggled with the new rules this season, but at 6-4, 227 he gives the Canadiens much-needed muscle on the penalty kill.
The Habs also are versatile on defense, where newcomer Mathieu Dandenault has jumped up to play forward on occasion. Center Radek Bonk, who was acquired from the Kings in the offseason, was slowed by groin troubles earlier this month and has not yet kicked it into gear. Steve Begin already is within three goals of the career-high 10 he scored in 2003-04. And rookie Tomas Plekanec, who was voted the fastest skater and MVP of last year´s AHL All-Star Game, is just finding his groove.
Throw in the fact Theodore is playing well enough to conjure memories of his 2001-02 Vezina Trophy season and Kovalev´s expected return in mid to late December and there is every reason to believe the 2005-06 Canadiens are for
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bon en gros il se pose comme question au debut pk le ch réussi car il non pas de grand pointeur leur goaleur est pas se qu´il devrai etre leur deff moyenne et kovalev blessé
alors il explique en gros que si le ch gagne ses grace au fais qu´il soi ermétique et que nous soyon capable dans donné juste assez pour gagné de la les victoire par un but il explique que les sens la caroline et philadelphi doive et devrai craindre le ch car leur syle de jeu et les joueur qui compose l´équipe joue le systeme a merveille.
Il explique notament que les succes de l´équipe son réparti sur plusieur joueur que nous avon une deffencive mobille et efficase que l´ajout de dandenault a grandement aidé point de vue profondeur.
POur terminé il explique que si théo redevien comme vla troi ans et que kovalev revient en forme le ch seras une des équipe les plus dur battre et serai l´une de possibilité pour la finalle d´association et QUE SE N´EST PAS UN FEU DE PAILLE. alors outre rds il y a d´otre personne qui pense que nous pouvon gagné et se rendre loin Jespere que ce topic d´une objectivité total pour une foi vous a rendu service
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